Jul 22, 2011

By ROHAIL PREMJEE and BRYAN RAHIJA

Earlier this week, President Obama announced the nomination of Roslyn A. Mazer for Inspector General (IG) of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). This position has been vacant since March 1 of this year, when former DHS IG Richard Skinner retired.

Mazer currently holds the position of Inspector General of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. She previously worked for seven years as counsel at the Oversight & Review Division of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Justice (DOJ).

As Steven Aftergood, Director of the Federation of American Scientist’s Project on Government Secrecy noted in 2009, Mazer has a strong track record when it comes to tackling overclassification:

Under Ms. Mazer’s leadership from 1996 to 2000, the ISCAP declassified information in an astounding 80% of the documents that were presented for its review. In fact, Ms. Mazer’s ISCAP was so successful in overturning spurious classification claims that the Central Intelligence Agency begged for relief from ISCAP jurisdiction.